Of Puppy Dogs and Pity
by Hopeakaarme
Summary: Dan Taichi shows off his new serve, shocking all of Seigaku's tennis club. Shounen ai AkuDan only if you want to see it.


Disclaimer: I own very little.

A/N: Because Dan deserves his own special shot, too, darn it.

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Of Puppy Dogs and Pity

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"Hey, Seigaku!" The familiar voice drew gazes to the side of the court in the middle of the practice. Sengoku Kiyosumi waved at them, grinning. "Would you care to help us a bit?" 

"Ah, Yamabuki's Sengoku," Oishi said, jogging towards him. "How can we be of help?"

"Well, a match would work fine." Still grinning, Sengoku stepped aside, revealing a somewhat nervous-looking Dan Taichi behind his back, carrying a racquet bag. "Dan-kun has a new serve he'd like to test out."

"Surely you have enough people for that in Yamabuki?" Oishi asked, confused. "Why would you have to come here just for testing a serve?"

"Well, this is a special serve," Sengoku told them. "Sure, we have players at Yamabuki, but nobody on the same level as your people."

"Oh?" Tezuka had walked closer and now raised an eyebrow. "Who would he like to play with, then?"

"Um..." Dan seemed to shrink back a bit. Then, with a quiet voice, he said, "I'd like to play Fuji-san desu..."

"Now, don't be so afraid, Dan-kun," Sengoku said with a grin. "I'm sure you'll do fine."

"Fuji?" Tezuka asked, turning towards the genius. "Would you mind playing Dan-kun?"

"Oh, I'd really like to do that," Fuji said, smiling. "It'd be something of a change to the usual practice!"

"In that case, it's fine with me." Tezuka nodded. "The D court should be empty, you may play there if you wish."

"Thanks desu!" Dan's fear seemed wiped away as his eyes shone with excitement.

"Nyaa, don't go too hard on the kid, Fujiko," Eiji said cheerfully. "He's too cute to be mean to him!"

"Oh, don't worry, Eiji," Fuji said, laughing. "I even promise not to use my Disappearing Serve!"

"He may want to forget that promise later on," Sengoku murmured good-naturedly as Fuji and Dan got ready for the match. As the Seigaku players gave him strange glances, he just grinned. "You'll see in a moment. Yamabuki's really lucky to have a player such as Dan-kun."

The first game made clear that Fuji was going easy on Dan, using only the original Triple Counters and normal serves. Still, the Seigaku players were somewhat impressed at the little boy's performance. He even managed to score points, and against somebody of Fuji's level this was an achievement even if the genius was going easy on him.

"Well, that's all he'll have," Momo commented as Dan finally won the first game. "Fuji-senpai won't lose against him even if he is cute, Fuji-senpai just won't lose."

"Oh, just watch," Sengoku said cheerfully. "You may be surprised, Omoshiro-kun." Leaning against the wire fence, he said, "After all, now it's the time for his new serve to appear!"

"Oh?" Inui immediately had a notebook at ready. "What is the serve like?"

"You'll see in a moment," the redhead said. "Just wait a bit. Oi, Dan-kun!" he then shouted. "Just relax and do your best!"

Dan settled himself on the serving spot, looking at Fuji somewhat nervously. "Please have pity on me," he said, smiling. Then, he threw the ball in the air.

The serve didn't seem very special as Dan hit the ball, nor was it excellent in where it landed – it was going right towards Fuji's racquet. The excitement escaped the Seigaku team, only to return tenfold as Fuji, just about to return the seemingly easy shot, drew his racquet away at the last moment.

"Fi-fifteen-love," the referee – Arai – stammered. He was not used to the school's genius missing such an easy shot.

Fuji looked first at where the ball had bounced, then at Dan. His smile broadened a bit. "That is an excellent serve, Dan-kun," he said. "You should be proud."

"I am, Fuji-san," Dan replied, still smiling. And then, again, "Please have pity on me."

Again, Fuji's racquet avoided the ball at the last moment.

All of Seigaku's tennis club had now ceased their training, watching – or more like staring – as Dan continued to hit ace after an ace against Fuji. By each serve a bit of Dan's nervousness seemed to disappear in favour of his ever-growing smile. By the time the stunned Arai announced another game to Dan, nobody still had any idea what was going on. Even Tezuka seemed less confident than usually.

"It's an incredible serve," Inui muttered, writing furiously in his notebook. "To think that somebody could even think about it, leave alone hit it..."

"What is it, Inui-senpai?" Momo asked. "The kid is awesome, he's just awesome!"

"I guess what he says is true," Inui said, adjusting his glasses. "'Have pity on me,' indeed." He glanced around at the curious gazes of his team mates. "In theory, a tennis ball has an ideal spin and speed that offers the least resistance to it. It's mostly the same although weather conditions can change it somewhat. Somehow Dan-kun manages to determine with just a few hits the ideal spin for the given weather, after which he serves the ball at exactly that spin along its most natural path. To an average person it has little effect, and he would be at more advantage by using the Twist Serve, but against those with inborn tennis instincts..."

"It just feels wrong to hit it," Ryoma finished for him. "Basically, the better instincts you have, the more impossible it is to return the shot." He tugged his cap down to conceal his face, smirking a bit. "Such a scary serve for a brat to have..."

"You're a brat yourself, nyaa!" Eiji said, grinning at Echizen. "But is that really possible, Inui?" he then asked. "It sounds so... unreal, nyaa!"

"It's no less impossible than playing blind," Oishi pointed out. "If Fuji can do that, he can surely sense when the ball'd much rather just be left alone."

"But Fuji-senpai must have already figured out the trick, himself," Katsuo pointed out. "Why doesn't he just ignore the feeling and hit the ball anyway? Those are such easy shots..."

"To somebody of Fuji's level, it's pretty much impossible." Inui shifted his glasses. "When it comes down to it, strong tennis instincts go beyond conscious thought. Even I have experienced it – during the match against Renji, when my data wasn't enough, my body started moving by itself, listening to my instincts rather than my logic. I'm sure that's what it's like to Fuji now – Fuji himself does his best to hit the ball, but his body moves the racquet out of the way at the last moment."

"That must be really frustrating, nyaa," Eiji said, peeking out to the court. "How long can he keep hitting that serve? Aren't most special shots really draining or something, nya?"

"That's another point that makes this serve so perfect for somebody like Dan-kun," Inui said. "Instead of energy, it requires precision and a kind of a natural instinct in itself. As far as I see, he can keep hitting that serve for the duration of any normal match. This way, he can hold all his serves, and he only needs to break his opponent's service game once to win. And as Fuji already gave him that in the first game..."

"Wow." Horio's eyes were wider than perhaps ever as he stared out into the court. "Why does everybody have special shots but me? It's so unfair!"

"Maybe, if you worked on it, you could come up with something, too," Sengoku's voice surprised him. They turned to look at the Yamabuki vice-captain who was still grinning as he watched the match. "Dan-kun came up with this serve all on his own – well, he and Akutsu did, at any rate. He just asked yesterday in practice whether he could show us his new serve and went on keeping his serve against every single regular and a few other people, too."

"You lost to him, too?" asked Momoshiro at exactly the same moment as the first-year trio asked in unison, "Akutsu?"

"Yes, I did, and rather spectacularly, even," Sengoku replied good-humouredly. "And yes, Akutsu. The big scary guy who almost broke Echizen-kun. When I asked him where he got the idea he said that while Dan-kun is annoying most of the time, he's just too pitiful to hit, so he deserves to have a serve of the same nature."

"I guess it would be annoying, at the very least," Inui said, looking out to the court where Fuji now proceeded to serve, winning back another game. "Does it have a name?"

"Well..." Sengoku shrugged. "One guy who actually managed to hit it once or twice – guess his instincts weren't that strong in the end – said that it felt like he had just kicked a sick puppy. So, we decided to name it the Puppy Dog Serve."

While they were speaking, Fuji had won the third game. However, as Dan again got to serve, he continued to serve aces. The smile had disappeared from Fuji's face now, changing into a look of frustration.

"Is that why Dan-kun wanted to play Fujiko in particular?" Taka-san asked. "Because he has such great instincts?"

"Yes," Sengoku said. "We decided together that to test its efficiency on a truly high-rate player, it would be the best to play against Fuji. It's quite lucky he agreed to the match."

"So, let me get this straight," Oishi said. "Against an average player, Dan might lose, but the better his opponent is, the better chances he has of winning?"

"Well, to a point," Sengoku replied. "After all, he has to break the opponent's service at least once in order to win. Against somebody less compassionate than Fuji he would be lost or at least stuck in a draw."

"Wouldn't it be possible to return the ball with the exactly same spin, though?" Kaidoh then asked. "Fuji-senpai is a master of special spins, fsshuuu."

"Ah, but there's the true beauty of it." Inui smirked. "If you return the ball with exactly the same spin, it will end up hitting the net. I'm sure Fuji is aware of this."

"Wow, such a scary serve," Momo said. "I wouldn't like to go against that, I wouldn't like to go against that at all."

"You wouldn't have anything to worry about, fsshuuu," Kaidoh said. "Didn't you hear it only works against those with proper instincts, fsshuuu?"

"Now, now, Momo and Kaidoh," Oishi said, hurrying to interrupt the starting fight. "Let's just agree neither of you could break his serve, okay?"

"Well, isn't that interesting, nyaa," Eiji giggled. "If you can break his serve you're a bad player, nyaa!"

"Not really bad," Inui said. "After all, if he has properly mastered the Twist Serve, not just anybody could break that, either. It's a very fine line where it's possible to break the serve – and as he gets better with the other techniques, it gets even finer."

"Didn't I say we are lucky to have him?" Sengoku laughed. "When somebody else masters it, though, we're in for a never-ending match."

"Actually, I don't think that's possible." Everybody turned to look at Inui, puzzled. His eyes fixed on the court, Inui continued, "If it were only the matter of creating the correct spin, somebody like Fuji would have come up with that serve ages ago. Even without knowing what the spin is repeated attempts would eventually bear fruit. However, there is another thing that must be passed onto the ball in the serve." After a moment of silence for the effect, he added, "Vulnerability."

"Ah, I see," Oishi said. "So that's why hitting it feels so wrong!"

"Indeed." Inui nodded. "No matter how heartless the opponent may be, their instincts will take pity on the poor little ball."

"Which means it's perfect for him," Echizen said with a dry tone. "Puppy Dog Serve, indeed."

"And as it requires a certain amount of skill and instinct to create a certain spin and few great tennis players are vulnerable," Sengoku said, "it's something only Dan-kun can do." The Seigaku players all around him nodded.

Dan kept yet another serve, bringing the score to 5-3.

"Do you know what'd be really scary, though?" Momo asked then. As the others looked at him questioningly, he continued, "Imagine if the kid learns to return a ball with that spin!"

Now, everybody fell silent. Sengoku, however, smirked. "Yamabuki is very, very lucky," he said.

Dan's 6-4 victory came as a little surprise to anyone. Even by the match's end, Fuji hadn't managed to break Dan's serve even once. However, as he went to shake the smaller boy's hand, the smile was back.

"Congratulations, Dan-kun," the genius said. "You have created a formidable serve."

"Thank you, Fuji-san!" Dan practically beamed now. "It wasn't me who created it, though desu. It was all Akutsu-senpai's idea! Without him, I could have never done it desu!"

"Really?" Fuji asked. "He must be really proud of you, then."

"Oh, no!" Dan's beaming smile didn't fade in the slightest. "He says I'm an annoying brat and I ought to be killed so I'd shut up desu! But," he then continued just as cheerfully, "he never actually does it, so I know he isn't entirely serious desu!"

Dan didn't seem to even notice Fuji's strange gaze as he happily skipped to where the others were. "Did you see that Sengoku-senpai desu?" he asked excitedly. "It worked! It worked better than ever!"

"I said it would, wouldn't it?" Sengoku asked with a grin. "Thank you, Seigaku," he then said. "You've more than confirmed our theory."

"N-no, thank you," Oishi hastied to say. "It's rare to see such an incredible move!"

"I'm sure it'll be seen often enough in the future," Sengoku said. Turning towards Echizen, he said, "Good luck with the Tokyo District finals next year, Echizen-kun!"

Echizen tugged his cap even further down. "Tennis isn't about luck," he muttered.

"No, it isn't," Sengoku agreed. "It's only about who's pitiful and who is not!" And, laughing, he started to escort Dan away.

Inui glanced around. "Anybody want to know the chances on Yamabuki's next captain?" he asked.

Nobody cared to ask.


End file.
